On Numbers and Success: It’s All about the NumbersIf we want to know if a particular ministry is being “successful” we should ask the following question: What signs of the kingdom have we seen or experienced during the past week? All other measurements of success fall subservient to that single question.

On A New Vision Statement: Just Give Me JesusComing up with a vision statement has been ingrained in my mind and it got to the point that I felt inadequate as a pastor if I did not have a cool vision statement that no other church had. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a vision statement? I have spent hours praying and even fasting over a vision statement, thinking that a vision statement would instantly grow my church.

On Being Relevant, Popular, and Contextual: Be Irrelevant…being relevant is one of the biggest scams Satan has sold the 21st century Church (especially in the US). Millions of people have sold out to the whims of pop-culture (and yes, there’s a difference) in the name of relevancy.We say we’re being relevant by immersing ourselves in The Bachelor or in Twilight or even (heaven forbid) The Hunger Games. We say we’re trying to be relevant by obsessing over how we look or the latest fashion trends. We say we’re trying to be obedient to being “all things to all people,” but in the end, we simply look confused.We have to stop pretending we don’t enjoy these things, people. We like shows like The Bachelor and movies like The Hunger Games. We don’t just watch them under some misguided guise of relevancy. We watch them because we enjoy them.

On A Generation That’s Staying Home: The Go-Nowhere GenerationPerhaps young people are too happy at home checking Facebook. In a study of 15 countries, Michael Sivak, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (who also contributed to the D.M.V. research), found that when young people spent more time on the Internet, they delayed getting their driver’s licenses. “More time on Facebook probably means less time on the road,” he said. That may mean safer roads, but it also means a bumpier, less vibrant economy.

On Being Yourself – Not a Role: How to Attend a Conference as YourselfMy sense of self is dangerously close to my sense of role. I’m a writer, a speaker, a consultant, a father, a husband, a skier, etc. But who am I when I’m not actively being those things? Who am I’m without my accomplishments — past, present, or future?Just me. Which, it turns out, was unsettling.

What about you? What’s caught your eye? What’s happening over on your blog?

For whatsoever work is not directed to the sole end either of keeping under the body, or of doing service to our neighbor – provided he require nothing contrary to the will of God – is no good or Christian work. Hence I greatly fear that at this day few or no colleges, monasteries, altars, or ecclesiastical functions are Christian ones; and the same may be said of fasts and special prayers to certain saints. I fear that in all these nothing is being sought but what is already ours; while we fancy that by these things our sins are purged away and salvation is attained, and thus utterly do away with Christian liberty. This comes from ignorance of Christian faith and liberty.– Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty

When I was little, sitting in Wednesday night “Prayer Meeting”, I remember being a bit mystified by some of the prayers I heard. Like when someone would pray for God’s presence to be with us that night, or to be with someone who was sick. I would think, But didn’t Jesus promise to always be with us and never forsake us?

Now I understand that we often ask for what’s already been promised to us when we don’t currently feel it. Despite my childhood skepticism, I often pray for God’s presence in times of fear, stress, or when I’m especially conscious of my powerlessness. But since God promised to always be with us – is the prayer more of an acknowledgement from me that I’ve noticed my need for His presence… rather than a prayer that to forego would also mean to forego His presence?

My latent uncertainty is perhaps why the above words of Martin Luther stood out to me when I read them. There are a lot of good works – spiritual disciplines and acts of service – that I’ve often done because I felt like God would be displeased with me if I didn’t do them.

Do I read my Bible to continue in the sanctification and death of my old nature and to be ready to give an answer to others who will ask me, or do I do it because I think God will be angry with me if I miss a couple days of reading?

Do I pray because I enjoy the time of purposeful practice of God’s presence and to intercede for family and friends, or because I imagine He will shun me somehow if I do not pray for as long as I did yesterday?

Do I serve my neighbors for their benefit, that they might be drawn to the light, or because I feel I will be unloved if I fail in seeing to their good?

In short – am I doing these things in a truly free and “Christian” way or to seek to gain “what is already ours”?

I am stunned by its simplicity.
That even listening to me,
Stumbling over foreign words
With a foreign tongue
She has understood.
She has glimpsed the Father’s love.
She has tasted a new birth.

I am confounded by its complexity.
My words lurch to a halt.
I try to think how I would explain in my native tongue
To native ears.
And still there is too much mystery.
There is too much love to see.
Too much life to explain.

I am silenced by its holiness.
We stop playing with words,
Meddling in the faulty tools of tongue and voice,
They do not work here.
We sit in verbose quiet.
Joy spreading across the room
Speaks for us.

I speak because it’s beautiful.
Lyrics that draw we off-key singers.
Did you ever think we’d be here?
Grace drenching us,
Rolling across the floor.
Joining in the mystery of a Creation singing,
Because who can keep silent?